


don't speak unless you're spoken to, little girl, someday you will find your place in the world.

by MeddleLyn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because she's great like that, Gen, Ginny Weasley-centric, Ginny as a spy for the order, Will add more as I go, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 08:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21898126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeddleLyn/pseuds/MeddleLyn
Summary: In which Ginny Weasley is fourteen, frightened, and fighting a war.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	don't speak unless you're spoken to, little girl, someday you will find your place in the world.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In the Shadow of a Damaged Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6510241) by [CavalryofWoah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalryofWoah/pseuds/CavalryofWoah). 

> This is so bad and also like the longest thing I've ever written but whatever. I like the concept and I really hope you all enjoy it. I would love to write more for this but I don't know if I will. It will depend on how many people like it. Leave a comment if you did, and hopefully I'll write some more.
> 
> This is also heavily inspired by the attached work, which is a masterpiece you should all read if you enjoyed this concept. I realized upon a reread of this how similar this is to that fic, but should I write more it will be quite different than that one I should hope.

She stumbles upon them first in the kitchen. She figures that the summer heat would be getting to her if it could penetrate the walls of Grimmauld Place, but whatever the case she was always a degree off comfortably cold in the Order’s headquarters. She is about to walk into the kitchen to make tea but stops short when she hears the telltale sound of whispering plans.

She pulls out an Extendable Ear - Fred and George had given her a few to test, and she figures that if she has the opportunity she might as well use them. She glances around and slips it under the door.

“-We do not know enough,” The first speaker is Snape. He rarely visits the house, so it’s a shock to hear his slimy voice, “The information is far too inconsistent to create any sort of plan of attack.”

“I’m aware, Severus, that we lack the multitude of sources we once had.” Dumbledore’s voice, however, earns an audible reaction out of her. Snape is rare enough, but Dumbledore surely has many things to do other than visit the house. “But we also lack the numbers we once had.”

“If we could recruit more people-”

“Ginny?” Her mother’s voice calls from the stairwell, “Come help me clean this wardrobe.”

She slides the Extendable Ear back into her pocket, the snippet of a conversation she’d heard bouncing around in her head like a chocolate frog in a box. She shakes her head to clear her mind and heads up the stairs to help her mother.

+++

Later that night, Ginny ponders on what she’d heard. She knew the Order didn’t have even close to the number of members it had in the first war, but was it truly this bad? She’d pieced together that Snape was involved in something much deeper than any of them had originally thought.

But he seemed… weary. Snape was always annoyed and fed up with the children but he seemed tired in a way he never had. She wonders what he has seen, what he has heard in this war.

What he has done.

She doesn’t sleep much that night. Her mind is full of thoughts of false peace and unreliable information. She busies herself with preparing for Hermione’s arrival in a few days. As she tidies her room she thinks of the students at Hogwarts. The students with familial ties to Death Eaters. She thinks of the Slytherins with mothers and fathers fighting on the wrong side of a war and for a moment, she forgets to hate them.

She finds a time somewhere between two and three to fall asleep, her late night thoughts pushed to the back of her mind when she wakes in the morning.

+++

The next time is after Harry arrives. It’s about four in the morning, but Ginny’s discovered that mornings are the only time she can find a semblance of peace so she’s become an early riser this summer. She is exploring the upper floors and its hallways, looking at the dark paintings and rotting wooden doors. She stops in front of one marked with an SB carved into the wood. It must have been Sirius’s room when he was a teenager. 

She reaches towards the knob, only to be stopped by the sound of conversation from behind a door on the other side of the hall. This time, there are no whispers, no hushed conversation. The voices are not loud, but they are clear enough to be heard through the door. This time, she can identify the speakers right off the bat.

“It is obvious that we cannot trust what little information we have,” Snape speaks with a strange bitterness in his voice, “There isn’t enough of us getting the same information to know what can be trusted. The Dark Lord may keep me close, but I am not close enough.”

“You must be enough. There is simply no one else able to become so close to anyone who knows plans.” Dumbledore’s voice carries through the wood with a melodic rhythm. He sounds… different to Ginny. Tired, like he’s put down the mask he wears around his students.

Ginny thinks back to the first conversation she’d heard, and understands it a bit more. She understands the concept of not knowing enough. Merlin knows she’s felt it all her life, being the youngest Weasley, the quietest Weasley. 

The evil Weasley.

She thinks back to the students who must know things, the Slytherins whose parents surely discuss life and death matters behind closed, yet thin, doors. The Ravenclaws whose families often end up on the side of “neutrality” and speak of plans for a war they plan to stay out of.

She thinks of how much children know. After all, she learned a great deal in just her first year at Hogwarts. She only knows more now. 

Ginny realizes where her mind has taken her. And the thought is stupid, so incredibly stupid. It couldn’t possibly work. Except for the fact that maybe it could. Maybe she wants this enough to make it work. And she does - she wants this more than anything she’s wanted in her memory. She’s always wanted to help more than her parents ever let her, more than her brothers believe she is capable of.

She takes a short breath, grabs the doorknob, and opens the door.

The room appears to be a study of sorts. Dumbledore is sitting in a plush chair next to a bookcase. Snape stands in the middle of the room, arms behind his back. She thinks that she’s caught him mid-step, probably pacing.

“Good morning, Miss Weasley,” Dumbledore greets her, his voice back to what it’s always been, though his eyes miss a familiar spark, “It is quite early. What brings you up here this morning?”

Snape is eyeing her with a sort of venom, but she spies a hint of curiosity in his eyes. She stands up a bit straighter. It’s not too late for her to turn back, she knows. They don’t know what she’s about to say. She could come up with an excuse about a missing textbook or something but she won’t. They may not know, but she will. And she wasn’t sorted into Gryffindor for nothing.

“The Order doesn’t have enough informants,” It’s not a question. She knows it, knows that they know. It is a cold, hard, difficult fact. 

“And how exactly do you know this Miss Weasley?” Snape’s question is both an accusation and an inquiry, but she’s come too far to stop now.

“Children know a lot of things. A lot more than adults tend to suspect. For instance, I know that the room across the hall was once Sirius’s, that Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout fancy each other, that Tom’s diary contained a piece of his soul, that the Order doesn’t know enough concrete information about his plans.”

Her list extracts a visceral reaction from her teachers. Both seem stunned into silence for a moment, then Dumblerdore’s eyes widen a fraction while Snape narrows his at her.

“It seems you know a great deal more than anticipated Miss Weasley,” Dumbledore says, “But surely you have a reason for bringing these things to our attention at such an early hour?”

She takes a deep breath. No going back now. “I want to be a spy for the Order.” 

Snape shuts her down immediately, “Absolutely not. You are far too young to obtain any information of consequence. And besides, we will not intentionally put a child in danger.”

“I just proved that children can know much more than people assume. More than they themselves know often enough. There are many more students with ties to Tom than one would first assume.”

“We will not endanger the life of a child on some foolish notion of heroism, Miss Weasley. Get that idea out of your head.”

“As if I’m not already in danger. Hogwarts may still be the safest place on the planet but it is not nearly as safe as it used to be. The diary proved that, the dementors, Sirius. I will not be putting myself in much more danger by doing this. There will still be a war fought, still be death. I want to do my part to lessen that amount. My family won’t let me help because they worry for me. You don’t care for me so I thought it would be easy to say yes, Professor.”

Dumbledore, who had been quiet for most of the conversation, cut off whatever reply Snape had been about to retort, “How can you be sure that you would be able to find out sufficient information about the activities of Voldemort?”

“Plenty of Ravenclaws have Death Eaters in their families. There’s a few Hufflepuffs too. If I can get close enough to them, then I can get close enough to the Slytherins as well. I imagine the children of Death Eaters will have a lot to say on the subject of their parents’ plans. And I can get close to them. After all,” Ginny looks directly into Snape’s eyes, her tone turning a bit dangerous and a bit sad, “I am the heir of Slytherin. Or have you so easily forgotten, Professor?”

The two adults say nothing for a moment, seeming to think over it. Snape now regards her with a wary stare, while Dumbledore views her with a searching gaze.

She wonders what he is searching for.

Finally, her headmaster speaks up. “You present a strong case, Miss Weasley. Under normal circumstances I would not allow this, but as you have surely gathered, this is no ordinary circumstance. If you truly believe you can do this, then I believe that we have no choice but to allow you to.”


End file.
